Chest keloids: effect of surgical excision and adjuvant radiotherapy on recurrence, a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract Background Chest keloids are a difficult sub‐group of scars to treat, likely secondary to the high wound tension in the area that promotes excessive fibroblast proliferation and collagen deposition. Excision and adjuvant radiotherapy has been demonstrated as an efficacious treatment for keloids in general, but no meta‐analysis exists to support the claims for chest keloids. This study aims to identify the rate of recurrence after surgical resection and radiotherapy on patients with chest keloids. Methods A search was performed using Embase, MEDLINE, Pubmed and Cochrane database on 22 December 2018 for terms ‘radiotherapy’, ‘keloid’ and ‘chest’. Papers included met a prospectively designed inclusion criteria assessed by multiple investigators. Results Twelve studies, including 1 randomized controlled trial, were included for a total of 400 patients with a chest keloid scar managed with surgical excision and adjuvant radiotherapy. Overall pooled‐estimate of recurrence rate was 22% (95% CI 12–32%). Meta‐regression did not demonstrate a significant effect for method of wound closure, type of radiotherapy, radiotherapy dose (BED 10 ) and study type. Conclusion Excision and adjuvant radiotherapy represents an effective method of treatment for chest keloids, however sufficient prospective data, including randomized controlled trials, did not yet exist to support these findings. Further studies with sufficient sub‐group analysis for keloid location are required to add to the pool of literature that can be added to this meta‐analysis.